Community Connections alumni Sedrak Asatryan and Ovsanna Stepanyan signed a partnership agreement between their law firms to enhance their clientele base and offer them needs-based specialized service. From now on, customers applying to "Concern-Dialog" CJSC with customs related issues will be rederred to :JIT Express" LLC and vise versa, those applying to "JIT Express" LLC for legal counseling services on comprehensive/corporate or investment issues will be referred to "Concern-Dialog" CJSC

Sedrak Asatryan, the General Director of “Concern Dialog” CJSC highly appreciates his participation in the USAID funded Community Connections program “Independent Practice by Emerging Legal Professionals”, which took place in July, 2010, Cincinnati, Ohio. When applying for the program, Asatryan was familiar with the American legal system and had clear understanding of his professional needs from the exchange program in the US. Along with partnership issues, he was interested in marketing and building relationship with clientele. It could never come to his mind that some day his dream would come true and he will have a chance to see all this with his own eyes.

Asatryan highly valued the work done by Charles F. Hollis, principal attorney at Benjamin, Yocum & Heather LLC, who acted as the action planning facilitator in the course of the program. Thanks to him, he gained profound knowledge in partnership issues and unfolded his ideas on potential partnership between two law firms participating in that exchange program. In addition to this, visits to the law firms Graydon Head and DBL Law reinforced the theoretical knowledge gained at the action planning sessions.

Already in Armenia, Ovsanna Stepanyan, the young director of “JIT Express” LLC and participant of the same group, supported Asatryan’s ideas in signing an agreement between their two firms by acknowledging the mutual benefits of that initiative. Now, when both they were equipped with new ideas and knowledge they could easily bring that into life. The first step is already done: partnership agreement signed which has put the basis for the future fruitful cooperation between the two law firms which, in its turn, will lead to increased scope of customer service and customer satisfaction.

“I always had the idea of partnership in my mind. What I lacked was confidence and exposure to others’ experience. I was able to feed these gaps through participation in this program which gave me a vital exposure to the US legal system and proved the benefits of partnership”, mentioned Asatryan.